What's up lately

Not much going on here, but I thought I'd post.

Madelyn's 3rd grade picture came back already, isn't she a doll? That is some shiny hair.

She made these cards for her grandparents with the little prints.

She's going to join the school art club this week. She is constantly drawing and coloring and doodling on everything. (I still doodle during church. I think she inherited this.)

She put up an art show in her room.

Most of her school work gets embellished.

We were watching The Big Bang Theory (she loves that show) and they were playing Pictionary, so she wanted to play with me. Her last picture was of Sheldon Cooper at his desk. LOL.

 

 This is a Halloween drawing she did the other day. Isn't it great?! It has moon craters, flying eyeballs, a skeleton, a witch making brew in the house, a witch and black cat on a broom, zombies saying "Braaaaaainsss!" and a vampire, turning into a bat, saying "Bloooood!"

 And here she is paging through the Oriental Trading Halloween catalog, circling everything she wants with pen, just like I used to do! Best catalog of the year. I love Halloween.

She smashed her finger in the bathroom door at school 10 days ago. The top left picture is from that day. It's gotten progressively darker and more colorful. It was really painful at first and she told us that she wouldn't be able to go to school or gymnastics for about 6 weeks...(she went to both three days later, since it happened on a Friday.) Oh the drama!

Luke's been keeping busy. Here he is practicing sign language letters. He likes to squint with one eye while he does things.

He is having a birthday in two days! I can't believe it! I'll post more on him then.

 

He added another Beatles shirt to his collection (he has three, I have zero right now). My friend Annie got it for him at Target, because everyone in high school knew me as The Beatlemaniac, along with my friend Jaki.

By the way, if you've never seen Yellow Submarine, it is a really trippy animated feature. Jaki and I used to watch it during our all nighter "bashes" we used to have.

Speaking of Jaki!

I got to go to her stepson's mission homecoming a couple weeks ago! (Her 2nd husband has grown kids and it's sort of weird.) She and I have been friends since the 4th grade, and were completely inseparable through middle school and high school. We don't see each other very often, even though she just lives in St. George. She's a 3rd grade school teacher and also is in a band with her husband. She plays half a dozen instruments and is so talented.

 

It was so good to be among the Richins clan, because they really feel like family to me. It was fun seeing her dad and her brothers Bart and Warrin again. Her sister Jen lives in Mississippi with 7 kids and we were all missing their mom Phyllis, who passed away from cancer several years ago.

Mark's latest: he is antsy to build a new and improved computer for us and has been buying parts. He got a fancy new case so far, but then he got distracted by his arcade again and started buying parts for that.

He finally redid the control panel and has been working hard at rewiring it and making the buttons light up and all sorts of other stuff. I will do a full post on it when it's all done.

Last week, he also decided to replace a wheel bearing on his car. He's had to do that several times over the years, but hopefully now it will run smoothly long enough for us to pay off my car so then he can get a new one.

So that about sums it up for now...I'm going to be spending tomorrow getting ready for Luke's birthday. He keeps talking about "apple cake" and "chocolate cake" and I have no idea what he means by apple cake, so we're going for chocolate. Can't argue with that.